CHELSEA are facing a curb on their seemingly limitless spending power in a move designed to ensure they cannot buy whoever they like with Roman Abramovich's millions.

Growing anger at Chelsea's ability to dominate the transfer market through Abramovich's huge personal fortune has led UEFA and EU ministers to devise plans to ensure greater fairness.

Chelsea are currently allowed to run up massive losses as a business while spending vast amounts of money on players because they are bankrolled by Abramovich, who is worth an estimated #10billion.

But plans to limit spending by clubs in accordance with their annual turnover could see Chelsea's total spending in a season reduced to just #30million - the amount they spent on Andriy Shevchenko this summer.

Sports minister Richard Caborn attended a Brussels meeting which discussed reining in Chelsea and ensuring the double Premiership champions are not allowed to dominate because of their unique financial strength.

Caborn said: "There is support for the idea of introducing a better relationship between income earned by clubs and the amounts spent."

Under Abramovich, Chelsea have spent #276m on players and made losses of #228m.